Jaws!
The Polident VP
How interesting that the focus groups and polls, in particular CNBC and CNN, are showing that both women and independent voters found Joe Biden’s smirking, boisterous, boastful, and disrespectful snark during the Vice Presidential debate quite quite offensive. Golly gee, aren’t they the two voting blocks that are desperately needed by both parties to win this election?
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Joe Biden lost some women voters after that debate. Even my yellow-dog demo friends found him offensive, and are reconsidering their vote. Biden thought those horse teeth were cute and appealing, but he came across as a sneaky, dirty old man in the middle stage of Altzeimer’s. Inappropriate laughter is a classic symptom of the disease. He needs a visit to a neuro doc, methinks.
Very apt description, Jane. Biden has always exhibited a deep personality disorder but I wouldn’t be surprised if Alzheimers was on the horizon.
And I agree, I think his ridiculous demented buffoonery on Thursday night while very serious issues were under discussion has changed some voters’ minds, especially women and independents, the very folks both parties need to win.
I think the Obama campaign made a conscious decision to play to their base. As Ace at Ace of Spades HQ said:
“I hate to say this, but as I said in the liveblog, Biden’s Mission Number One was to reassure and re-energize the base. He did that. He at least stopped some Democrats from defecting to Romney, or deciding not to vote.
But he did play exclusively to the Democratic Client Groups — all the groups with their hands out for federal money…”
They were playing to the people who think that what politics is about is shouting down your opponent and not letting them talk at all.
Agreed. Not sure what the Romney/Ryan strategy was.
My guess was that Romney/Ryan intended to simply keep the people they got from the first debate. Not gain, anything, just keep pace. More like a marathon runner rather than a sprinter. Start out strong, maintain your lead, or stay at near the front, push towards the finish. If you push hard now, you risk alienating those that have seen you as the reasonable choice.
I think you’re on target with this observation. It would make more sense for the Romney/Ryan camp to take a very conservative, very careful approach to the VP debate–not give the Left anything they could use against them. I think the agenda for Ryan was to come off as a competent, polite, polished professional and just let Joe Biden be himself. So no push back with the so-called moderator when she constantly interrupted Ryan–could be perceived as a male/female war-on-women thing. No take-down of Granpa Joe–could be interpreted as a mean thumping of a senior citizen. Take no risks.
And I think now that the dust has settled, that the Romney/Ryan strategy was successful. It was old Joe who looked snarky, snide, and unprofessional–the stereotypic political hack. The feedback from the focus groups appears to confirm that. The Dems might have pleased their base but they didn’t win any new voters. I think Ryan did help to pick up some undecideds.